


Don't Mind Me, I'm Watching You

by SnitchesAndTalkers



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternative Universe - FBI, Digital Piracy, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Smut, The FBI agent watching your computer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 20:56:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13796220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnitchesAndTalkers/pseuds/SnitchesAndTalkers
Summary: Chances are, if someone spends more than a couple minutes rooting around on Tumblr or Twitter, Reddit or Buzzfeed they’ll see it. Those tired comments about the FBI agent monitoring my computer. Everyone laughed in 2008, but the smiles faded slowly, now it barely raises an eyebrow. After all, it’s an utterly ridiculous notion that for each person using the internet around the country, there’s an FBI agent assigned to them. The math is mind-boggling, everyone would be an agent tailing other agents in a never-ending loop of not-so-subtle sleuth.The reality is thatof coursethere aren’t individually assigned agents for every person in the country.The reality is that each agent deals with around two hundred of the worst offenders.And Patrick willnotlay off the illegal downloading.





	Don't Mind Me, I'm Watching You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlatinumAndPercocet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlatinumAndPercocet/gifts).



> Happy birthday to one of the most wonderful, the kindest, the most sincere and lovely people that I know.
> 
> PlatinumAndPercocet you're amazing, doll! I hope you have a truly wonderful day, my dear!

_Operational Analysts required._

_Must have a sharp eye for detail. High levels of computer literacy required. Degree preferred but not essential. Full training will be given._

_Competitive salary and full benefits package offered._

That was it.

That was the ad that got Pete into the mess he’s currently in.

He stares at the screen, spine stiff-straight and eyes caught somewhere between shock-wide and squeezed up tight in panic. The mouse button is dull under the frantic tip of his trembling finger, cursor hovering over the button that will bring everything to a stop and make it all go away.

Except it won’t – make it go away, that is – because Pete has now seen things, _heard things,_ that he’s never going to be able to pretend he hasn’t. Pete has seen pale skin, lust-flushed and jewel-dappled with sweat, he’s seen damp hair darkened to honeyed gold gripped tight between elegant fingers. He’s seen the curve of a pretty, pink cock he’d never even _thought_ about until right in this moment, caught somewhere between _need_ and _no._

“Just apply, Pete,” he hisses under his breath, teeth gritted tight, voice sing-song with the parody of someone else’s timbre. “What do you have to lose?”

~*~

Everyone is on the internet, right? That never faltering, spark-bright glow of a pixelated Oracle dealing data like drugs into the veins of a society constructed almost entirely of addicts. Laptops, tablets, PCs and ever-present smartphones tucked away snug like riches. Who doesn’t panic in that blind moment of fumbling in pockets and purses for the reassuring weight-shape-heft of the lifeline of humanity? Social media and email, streaming sites, gaming sites, every piece of knowledge, every masterpiece of art, cinema and music that mankind has ever amassed available at the touch of a screen.

And all of the free porn.

The nation taps and clicks and swipes right, they complete quizzes and surveys, buy gifts and groceries and sex toys from Amazon.

Chances are, if someone spends more than a couple minutes rooting around on Tumblr or Twitter, Reddit or Buzzfeed they’ll see it. Those tired comments about _the FBI agent monitoring my computer._ Everyone laughed in 2008, but the smiles faded slowly, now it barely raises an eyebrow. After all, it’s an utterly ridiculous notion that for each person using the internet around the country, there’s an FBI agent assigned to them. The math is mind-boggling, _everyone_ would be an agent tailing other agents in a never-ending loop of not-so-subtle sleuth.

Any notion of a realistic endeavour tells someone with even a basic grasp of reality that no one is assigned their own personal agent trailing through each of their dubious Google searches, watching the things they download illegally or laughing at their taste in Hentai porn.

The reality is that _of course_ there aren’t individually assigned agents for _every_ person in the country.

The reality is that each agent deals with around two hundred of the worst offenders.

The _reality_ is nine hours a day squinting at a screen and transferring data from one document to another. It’s endless, monotonous shifts spent waiting for the notification to ping through that one of his miscreants is viewing something they shouldn’t. It’s the shutter-clack of keys as he screenshots them via their webcam – _all the better to see you with, my dears_ – so any notion of _it wasn’t me_ can be sharply yanked away. High definition pictures of faces drawn in concentration as they _tap tap tap_ at keys and navigate their way to places they shouldn’t. It’s the opposite of glamorous, the antithesis of slick, suit-wearing secret agents.

He doesn’t even get a badge. Which is bullshit, quite frankly.

Yes, _everyone_ is on the internet. But he’s still caught off guard, sent floundering into a tailspin of terrified panic when his monthly assignment folder drops into his inbox. An innocuous list of names is conjured before him to blur into one as he rolls through it lazily, eye half on the clock and heart halfway to Starbucks and the venti Frappuccino that will _literally_ have his name on it.

It was almost inevitable that one jumps out at him, fit to slap him across the face from a page of sensible black print in business-like Calibri. In that echoing moment when his heart stops beating and his lungs choke on nothing more than air, a mocking little voice whispers from the recesses of his mind, where the dark things lurk to taunt him in the hours of restless insomnia; _come on, like you thought it would be that easy._

Patrick Stump.

Pete starts to sweat. Pete begins to regret noting down _listening to music_ as a special interest on his resumé because of course Patrick - music thief extraordinaire - was going to plummet to his desk like the proverbial ton of bricks.

The thing is, Patrick downloads a ridiculous amount of music illegally. More than he possibly has hours in the day to listen to, a compulsion forged in furtive clicks of his mouse as he sits watching TV with his laptop balanced on his knees. Album after album, stored, collected and catalogued in the safety of a dozen different external hard drives. A litany of offences that stare up at Pete from the page in front of him as he wonders if he should raise his hand and ask to be excused for a moment.

Oh God, that’s just the music, that’s before anyone has even _touched_ on the movies. Every possible genre, brand-new releases ranged alongside black and white classics, Oscar winners and trashy teen movies, Patrick has them all - can quote huge swathes of dialogue from most of them. And yes, it’s fun to conduct conversations constructed exclusively from John Hughes movie quotes to confuse their friends but _seriously_ , they cost a couple bucks on Amazon and Patrick is in shit right the way up to his neck.

It’s not that Pete hasn’t warned him, comments dropped like names into conversations as they lounge on the couch they’ve shared since they finished college six years previously – yeah, Pete knows he should have moved on by now, but what’s wrong with living with his best friend? It beats the shit out of living alone and Patrick makes a _mean_ veggie lasagne. Pete has warned him time and again since he started this job that Patrick needs to slow down his addiction to downloading. He’s told cautionary tales of prosecutions like parables that have fallen on ears deafened by the press of headphones and the latest Jay Z album. That he didn’t pay for. Obviously.

Patrick doesn’t _listen._

Now this. Pete blinks, world-weary and bone-tired as he scrapes his hands through his hair and glances guiltily from side to side. Do they know? Is someone monitoring _him_ right now? Some kind of test meted out by the Bureau to establish his loyalty as an Operational Analyst? He decides to do nothing, just spend a few days pushing Patrick to the bottom of his list to see if anyone asks any questions, if his supervisor makes a comment too sharp to be casual.

So, _nothing_ is what he does. He works on his other cases, dumping data and screenshots into neatly labelled files for the consideration of his higher ups. He watches teens downloading leaked blockbusters, watches unsavoury individuals google things he never imagined anyone would need to know and sees dead-eyed guys jerk off to questionable porn. He does his job and pretends Patrick’s name isn’t staring at him like an accusation every time he clears his inbox.

Nothing happens.

Three days later and Patrick is still on his list, the name that activates alerts for suspicious activity more than any of the others he’s supposed to monitor. Pete is sat at the cluttered crowd of his desk, littered with soda cans and Starbucks cups, underarms sheened in sour-smelling nervous sweat as his finger hovers over the delete key. One stroke, he promises himself, one key to wipe the slate clean and then he’ll have a Serious Discussion with Patrick about the Morals and Ethics of Illegal Downloading.

But what if he gets caught?

His heart is fluttering caged-bird bright against his ribs, the messy throb of it loud enough to echo in his ears as he slips off his headphones with furtive intent. He glances around - assures himself his geographically closest colleagues are performing their civic duty with dexterity - and hits delete. It vanishes, rolls away to nothing, every incriminating web log destroyed with nothing more than the interminable rotation of an arrow chasing its fletch in endless loops. Patrick is in the clear, Pete is a good friend and it’s triumph for truth, for justice and for the American Way.

Pete isn’t surprised - _annoyed_ , yes, please note he’s so very, passionately _irritated_ \- but he’s not _surprised_ when Patrick’s name lights up his list of targets almost immediately. A streaming website. Because of course. With another furtive glance and fingertips that fumble with the weight of the subterfuge, he calls up the webcam and audio link, slips his headphones back into place and hopes against futile hope that it’s someone else. Maybe Andy swung by the apartment, burning with the desire to hear the latest Katy Perry album? Maybe Joe dropped in, insane with the need to watch Fast and the Furious 812?

It’s Patrick.

Glasses slightly askew, lip caught between his teeth in concentration, eyes down as he taps away at the keyboard.

_Take a screenshot?_ His computer prompts him and again he wonders if this is being monitored, if there’s an agent assigned to every couple hundred analysts. He wonders if _they_ get a cool badge. Fingers poised, he doesn’t even risk a glance around the room as he clicks _no_ with as much snappy authority as he can muster. A tap of a button and Patrick disappears, the next suspect called up as Pete mops his suddenly sweat-damp brow with the sleeve of his hoodie and decides, with a huff of irritation, that he’s having a talk with Patrick after work.

He arrives home to find Patrick sprawled on their living room floor, a small black box in his hand and cables looped from the TV to the phone outlet. Patrick beams at him, sunshine bright and cardigan crumpled as he gestures at the setup like they’ve won the damn lottery.

“It’s a streaming box,” he informs Pete, polishing his glasses on the sleeve that flops down over his wrist to slouch against his palm. Pete never really paid attention to how cute that is. He wonders if the dudes in the prison Patrick is inevitably going to find himself in will find it quite so charming. “So, like, listen because… right, this is like, _so fucking cool_ , just - just come and take a look, yeah? Right, so, now this is - it’s like, _linked_ to my laptop and we - we can watch whatever we want! Right here on the TV! Awesome, right?”

Oh God, does that… Will that somehow incriminate Pete? He fiddles with the corner of the pizza menu clutched in his hands and tries to find the right way to gently bring up Patrick’s apparent compulsion to continue breaking the law.

“I think you should stop downloading so much stuff,” he blurts out as Patrick blinks at him, wide-eyed with incomprehension, from the rug on the floor. His shirt has ridden up, his pale belly exposed, lightly fuzzed with copper-gold hair. “Seriously dude, aren’t there like, _laws_ about that shit?”

There are. Pete knows them all by heart. Title 17, United States Code, Sections 501 and 506. He would tell him, he swears he would, if not for the non-disclosure paperwork he signed when he started the job. Knowing what he knows, he wouldn’t put it past them to have bugged his ID pass.

“Are you serious?” Patrick laughs after a beat of silence, climbing to his feet and snatching the menu from Pete’s hand. “They save that for, like, the ones hosting these sites. Not dudes like me just, you know, downloading a couple albums,” a _couple?_ Pete would laugh if it wasn’t so damn serious. “Hmm, I think I feel like the super veggie tonight, how about you?”

Pete sighs and glares enmity at the little black box squatting, smug and self-satisfied, next to the TV. The little green light blinks back at him cheerfully, as obviously oblivious to the gravity of the situation as Patrick, humming something upbeat as he moves around the kitchen.

That kid is going to wind up in serious trouble and Pete’s not sure he can help him dig his way out of it.

~*~

Pete can’t move.

He’s not sure he can actually _breathe_ , frozen as he is in front of his monitor at his tiny cubicle with a pop vinyl Slash staring at him in silent – but _fierce_ – judgement. Pete turns him to face the wall. Slash doesn’t need to see this.

His knuckles glow with whitewashed brightness, artificial, chalk-bright and gleaming as he grips the mouse hard enough that his fingers ache. He should look away, tells himself over and over again to just _look away_ , find something else to look at but his eyes won’t cooperate, pinned rapturously on the way Patrick’s back arches as he thrusts up into his fist. He can’t pretend he hasn’t noticed what Patrick is watching, the dark-haired dude on his knees, mouth wrapped around the flushed-hard length of some faceless blonde’s cock.

It seems that rumours of Patrick’s heterosexuality have been greatly exaggerated.

_Take a screenshot?_ The computer’s cheerful, if horribly timed, prompt flashes up, momentarily obscuring the view. Pete knows he should be thankful for the distraction and yet...

It’s tempting. Just one, he could drag it into a little folder, ping it from his work email to his personal and… And _what?_ What in the hell is he _thinking?_ He needs to close it down, right now if not sooner and pretend he hasn’t seen his friend two fingers – he pauses to check – no, _three_ fingers deep in his own ass.

Pete isn’t sure if he should be horrified or impressed. This is Patrick – _Patrick_ – his best friend since they were assigned the same dorm in college. Patrick is pizza night and shitty movies, he’s cosy cardigans and novelty socks, he’s not lube and cock and breathy little moans that catch in Pete’s ears like pornographic lullabies. And the worst part – the most unsettling thing about the whole incident  - is that Pete is embarrassingly, _painfully_ turned on.

He shifts in his seat and seriously considers popping the button on his jeans, just so he doesn’t lose circulation to his dick. What is he _doing?_ On the screen, Patrick groans a little louder, the noise echoing through his headphones to vibrate through his skull as he implores himself to close the window down and stop watching. He can’t. Patrick is close and drawing closer with each stroke, his body sheened with sweat that Pete aches to taste, his palm flashing smoothly up and down his shaft as Pete swallows the flood of greedy saliva that coats his tongue. He wants to see Patrick come, wants to have something extra to assist him when he slips away to jerk off in the bathroom, he leans a little closer, nose inches from the screen as he drinks in each pale line of Patrick’s body.

It’s just sex. Nothing more. Patrick is just a pretty body with a beautiful cock.

“Jesus fuck!” he yelps as a hand clamps to his shoulder, the heat of it searing through to his sensitised skin as he spins in his desk chair, arms flung wide. The internet equivalent to tossing a blanket over Patrick to cover him. Gabe – the guy from three cubicles over – blinks at him in confusion. “Jesus _Christ_ , dude, you scared the fucking shit out of me!”

“You got a masturbator?” Gabe observes, nodding at the screen that Pete scrabbles to shut down. “Fuck, those are the worst. They don’t pay us enough to see that shit… Hey, he’s pretty cute though, how come I never get cute ones…”

_Hands off Saporta, he’s fucking mine_ , Pete thinks. Pete immediately questions _why_ he thinks that when Patrick absolutely, categorically is _not_ his.

“Yeah,” he laughs, bright with mania that has Gabe quirking a confused eyebrow. Why won’t the damn thing just _shut down?_ “Just a cute, totally random guy jacking off. No one I know. Nothing to see.”

“Right,” Gabe leans a little closer and Pete fights the urge to smack him in his stupid face. “Wow, he’s got a _huge_ \- ”

_“Yes,”_ Pete squeaks, close to hysterical. He can’t discuss the size of Patrick’s dick with a co-worker, he just _can’t._ “Humongous. Don’t you have work to do?”

“Sure,” Gabe scratches the back of his neck with a shrug and takes off towards his desk.

Pete finally gets the damn window to close as Patrick lets loose a melodious moan that sings its way through Pete’s headphones to surge electricity down his spine. A moan that sounds a _lot_ like _“Pete.”_ No. Patrick definitely _didn’t_ groan his name, that’s just wishful thinking. When everything is silent, Pete lowers his head into the splay of his palms and tries to breathe deeply. It’s okay, nothing to worry about - a snort of disbelieving laughter bursts from the back of his nose at that - he just has a sudden, overwhelming urge to fuck his best friend through the mattress.

No biggie.

The clock on the wall advises him that it’s after five and time to go home. Home to the apartment he shares with Patrick. There’s no way this can end badly, he’s sure of it.

He decides to broach the subject when they’re halfway through a case of beer, his head a little fuzzy and his cheeks already flushed from alcohol. He hopes it disguises the blush that heats him every time he remembers the arch of porcelain pale hips, the trace of a pink tongue over pinker lips.

“So,” he begins, then finds he has nothing to add when Patrick looks at him with a curiously raised eyebrow and eyes glazed slightly with booze. “Uh… nothing…”

“You’ve been acting weird lately,” Patrick raises an eyebrow at him. Well, Patrick _tries_ to raise an eyebrow but somehow just winds up in a cross-eyed squint as he ponders his statement before continuing with a giggle. “Well, you know, _weirder…”_

“Am not,” Pete mutters, cotton-mouthed and washed-whirl-headed as he closes his eyes and clicks his heels together three times, hoping against desperate wish that when he opens them again he won’t be able to recall the way Patrick’s fingers had looked wrapped around the cherry-tipped ivory of his cock.

Unfortunately for Pete, he’s wearing holey Chewbacca socks and not ruby red slippers, the memory still as bright and fresh as ever as he opens his eyes. Patricks wriggles closer with a huff, feet shoved into Pete’s lap as he gestures airily to the streaming box with a lazy smile.

“What do you want to watch?” he asks, rummaging for the remote. “I downloaded that new Star Trek movie…”

Pete needs to do something about this, he’s just not sure what.

An hour later and Patrick is snoring softly, arm tossed up to shield his eyes, lush-lip pout softly parted in sleep. Patrick shifts, the ghost of a smile on his lips, his dreams sweet and Pete’s ideas dark. It’s not that he thinks it’s the smartest move he’s ever made, but there’s a USB stick burning a hole in his pocket and an ache between his legs that he longs to relieve. He moves carefully, slippery with stealth as he steals from under Patrick’s calves, quiet and soft-soled as he eases to his feet and, theatrical on tiptoes, pads to his room.

Sweatpants snag somewhere around his knees as he slides the door closed with the softest _click_ , hands desperate and groping at his cock as he slips into his desk chair and boots up his laptop. The dead eye of the webcam stares at him with morose accusation and silent judgement. With a slow blink, he reaches for a heart-shaped post-it note and tacks it quickly in place. It’s not that he thinks anyone at work might be watching him, it’s just…

Okay, that’s exactly what it is.

Pete fucks himself senseless. Lube-slick fist grasping greedily at the swell of his cock, sliding slippery fingers over the lust-leaking tip as he bites moans into his arm until the teeth marks blur with ink stains in a canvas of ruby on jet. He arches ravenous hips as he watches the screen through eyes glazed with need. He watches him - watches _Patrick_ \- writhe and moan on a bed that’s barely ten feet away, separated from Pete by nothing more than a stretch of worn carpet and a panel of drywall.

He wants to feel dirty as he rolls his thumb over the thick-flushed crown of his cock, wants to feel like a terrible human being as he kicks his legs as far apart as the snug snag of his sweatpants tangled around his ankles will allow. He decides he’ll concentrate on that later, heels braced up to the desktop and fingers sucked sticky in the warmth of his mouth, mad with the need to feel something, some pressure and fullness. Warmth pools in the pit of his stomach as his fingertips skate the rim of his hole, as Patrick grunts a melody just for him through the plush curve of lips woven from so many pixels. His fingers breach muscle and resistance, something hot and tight winding bonds through his thighs as he bites his cheek until his tongue tangs with salt-copper brightness. Just a second more, just a moment and -

“Pete?”

Patrick’s voice is small. Patrick’s voice is soft with confusion and bloomed with the burgeoning bruise of hurt. Patrick’s voice is ice water over the heated ardour of Pete’s pulsing prick as he slams his heels back to the carpet hard enough to throb. He stumble-staggers his way to his feet with sweatpants caught around his knees, a hand groping to slam his laptop closed as a half-formed excuse falls flat from his lips to land somewhere between them.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he insists, pathetic and breathless.

“No?” Patrick’s flamed with embarrassment from the collar of his shirt to the very tips of his ears. “Was that..? It looked like… me.”

“What the hell are you doing in here?” Pete snaps, finally dragging the waistband a respectable distance over his hips. Attack is the best form of defence; every soccer player knows that. “Don’t you fucking _knock?_ Jesus Christ, can’t a guy masturbate in the privacy of his own room?”

“That _was_ me,” Patrick repeats, pointed finger blazing accusation directly at Pete’s laptop. “On your laptop. You were watching _me_.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Pete says, hoping his voice doesn’t shake as much as the hands he jams into his pockets. “It was just… some dude.”

“Some dude that was _me?”_ Patrick argues, the stubbornness that seems endearing when they’re debating metal music at two in the morning is suddenly irritating when they’re arguing about Pete watching him jerk off. “What - what the _fuck_ , dude? Did you like… do you have a fucking _camera_ in my room?”

Pete blinks down at his socks, the accusation just a little too close to the truth for him to feel comfortable. Who is he kidding? _None_ of this is comfortable. He stole government property so he could whack off over his best friend. He feels sick, the room far too hot as he tugs miserably at the collar of his shirt.

“You realise that sounds insane?” he just about keeps his voice level. “Don’t you?”

“That’s fucked up,” Patrick’s colour is high, cheeks painted ruby as embarrassment and confusion give way to white hot fury. “Where is it? Where the _fuck_ is it?”

With that he’s gone, Pete’s door a crash-slam of wood to wood as he hurls it closed behind him. The juddering jar of his own door thudding into his wall next door is enough to have Pete anxiously glancing at the ceiling, visions of noise violations dancing in his head. He’s shaking, the shudder of nervous energy chattering his teeth and nervous fingers plucking at the hem of his shirt. This is bad, it’s _really_ bad, Patrick is hurt, humiliated, _furious._

“I swear to God,” he can still hear him through the wall, hear the thumping thuds of furniture being moved, of boxes dragged to the floor and clothes tossed from the closet. “I swear to fucking _God,_ Pete, I’ll fucking _kill_ you. You – you goddamn _asshole_. Who the – who the fuck _does_ something like that? You’re fucked up, you hear me? Fucked up.”

Pete pauses, frozen with uncertainty halfway to the door. Shame heats his skin, rose-bloom flush of guilt layering under the ink and ravening bites marks on his forearms. His face feels too hot while his stomach pools with something frigid and unpleasant. He should do something, should go in there and apologise, beg for forgiveness before he finds himself missing a roommate. Something heavy and solid crashes into the wall between their rooms, accompanied by a throat-raw scream of _fuck you, Pete_ , ripped like savagery from Patrick’s lips.

Maybe he’ll just stay where he is. At least until Patrick calms down a little.

It takes ten minutes for the crashing to stop, ten minutes of cursing and screamed threats, the thump of what sounds like every item in his room being upended and shaken and thrown to the ground. Ten minutes for Pete to curl on his bed, back pressed to the wall and knees drawn to his chest as he contemplates each shitty choice he’s made in the past few days to lead him to this moment.

Ten minutes until everything goes silent but for the first low sob.

Pete is on fear-fumbled feet in an instant, tripping and staggering the ten steps between their bedroom doors. He’s shiver-shook with regret as he presses his ear to the door and listens to shuddering breaths and hiccupping sniffles, turning his head to graze his lips to the wood.

“Patrick?” he murmurs a traitorous tremor tickling the edges of his voice. “Can I come in?”

“Fuck off,” Patrick’s voice is a sharp bark of accusation that makes Pete flinch. “Leave me alone, asshole.”

“Please?” he implores, guilt clawing him dizzy as he pushes the flat of his palm to the door like he can soothe it all to nothing if he just tries hard enough. “I’m an asshole, I know but… let me just…”

Patrick doesn’t answer, silence ringing like an accusation between them. Slowly, Pete lowers himself to the floor, curled against it, cool to the touch of his shame-scorched skin. Inside, he hears Patrick move, hears the shuffle of sock-stifled footsteps across the floor then a thump and a heaved sigh as Patrick lowers himself to the other side of the door. Pete turns his head, presses his cheek to the wood and imagines he can feel the heat of Patrick’s shoulder radiating through cheap plywood and white paint.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers eventually, the noise of it distorted against the door, the heave of his sigh fogging condensation to jewel under his lips. “I just… I’m really sorry.”

“Where’s the camera, Pete?” Patrick asks softly, fragile words framed fit to crack around a gust of a sigh. “I – I can’t find it.”

Pete thinks about lying once more. If Patrick can’t find the camera there’s a slim hope he can persuade him it was all in his head, that the dude he was watching _wasn’t him_. Lungs stammer on liquid heat as he pulls himself more upright against the door, fingertips pressing into the faux grain of cheap veneer. He opens his mouth, the untruth framed by a deceitful tongue and duplicitous lips.

Nothing comes out.

Nothing but ragged breath, bruised with burning embarrassment and the knowledge that if he ever wants Patrick to speak to him again, he needs to be honest. He snaps his mouth shut; he’s not ready to say it just yet.

“Pete?” Patrick prompts on a shuddering breath. “You still there?”

Something in the timbre of Patrick’s voice cracks deep within Pete, some long forgotten place he thought lay dormant and buried torn wide open and raw as he swallows around a tongue too thick to speak. It’s a place of _maybe_ and _don’t ruin it_ , a place of sunrise smiles on a chubby kid with stupid sideburns and the ability to weave music around himself like a cloak. It’s the nights he spent unable to sleep, pacing the dorm room on silent soles to steal ghost-like to the window and debate with himself; wake Patrick up and tell him the truth or slide back into bed and stare at streetlight Picasso cast in amber and gold on the ceiling.

He always chose the bed. He was never brave enough to touch Patrick’s cheek, to meet eyes as brilliant as sand-worn sea glass and murmur _I love you._  

Instead he crushed it down, tucked it away tight and safe until it was forgotten, until he didn’t think about it anymore. He lost the way his heart would soar with nothing more than a smile, the way his lungs would tighten when Patrick said his name. He buried the memory of the moments he caught Patrick looking at him, pale arms hugged tight around the guitar cradled in his lap and a thoughtful look on his face. The brief beats of time when he thought Patrick might feel the same way. He would always remember at the moment, in that tap of two heartbeats synced like a love song, that while Patrick might love him like a friend, like a brother, he would never do so as a lover. Because Patrick was straight.

But straight dudes don’t get off watching gay porn.

He closes his eyes around the bitter burn of tears, sinks his teeth into the snag of his lower lip and draws a deep breath that shakes him raw.

“There’s… it’s – it’s sort of… on your laptop.”

“My _laptop?”_ Patrick’s voice swells like storm waves, deafening with accusation and hurt. “You used _my_ laptop to – to fucking _spy_ on me?”

“Dude, I…” Pete trails off, washed weak with fear of packed bags and boxes, days without stupid snapchats of random shit, nights without movies and pizza and 2am dance offs. “Listen. I have this job – ”

“Don’t try to change the fucking subject, I – ”

“Let me finish,” Pete begs, rolling to his knees, body pushed to the door like he can pray his way to forgiveness. “I – I work for the FBI…”

Silence hangs between them for a moment, fingers still scrabbling for something against the door.

“Fuck you, asshole,” Patrick’s voice is a sharpened scoff of disbelief. “Don’t try and turn this into some big fucking joke.”

“I swear I’m not,” Pete rests his sweat-misted forehead against the cool paintwork. “I… You know those dumb memes about FBI agents monitoring computers? That’s – it’s me. It’s real. I do that. And… I got assigned you. I told you, I fucking _told_ you, to stop downloading so much shit. But did you listen? So I tried to, like, delete it, you know? For you. But you kept _doing_ it and then – then today… the, uh, _movie_ you were watching triggered the… like… the filters? And that activates a… well, a tap in your webcam or something, I don’t know, they don’t really explain it to us. You were on the screen and… I didn’t know what to _do_ , man…”

“Why did you bring it home?” Patrick asks, suspicion sharp enough to slice through Pete, ice cold with hostility. “Why were you… doing that? In your room?”

Pete takes a breath, blinks twice and whispers softly.

“Because I… I love you,” he murmurs, fear stinging him raw, humiliation painting him crimson as Patrick makes a noise like he’s choking from the other side of the door. “Dude, I’ve loved you for, like, a decade. Did – didn’t you, you know, figure it out?”

“Is – is this some kind of dumb fucking joke?” Patrick asks, coldly cautious as the floorboards creak, the heave of him hauling himself to his feet and his voice weirdly distant as he moves back from the door. “Because if you’re fucking around, I swear to God…”

“Open the door,” Pete implores, hands braced to it as though he could haul Patrick through and into his arms through sheer force of will. For a long moment, there’s nothing but silence so deafening his ears ring with it and then… Patrick opens the door.

Pete blinks up at him, wide eyes and shy smiles, hands grasping into pajama print hips as he tugs him close, rests his head against Patrick’s stomach and heaves in the scent of old records, Miles Davis on Sunday afternoons and rainwater caught in soft blonde hair. Patrick resists for a moment then gives with a sigh, fingers carding through Pete’s hair as he frowns down at him through glasses knocked askew and eyes stained pink with tears.

“You love me?” Patrick questions, slow with incomprehension.

Pete nods with a shrug.

“You’ve… always loved me?” he blinks, slow-soft and dumbstruck. Pete nods once more. “I… I didn’t… You never said anything.”

“I’m saying it now,” Pete offers, hesitant with hope.

Patrick smiles, that same sunrise smile from his college days. He stoops, just a little, just a softening of his knees and bend to his spine as his hands – warm and tender and roughened at the fingertips – frame the line of Pete’s jaw. Their mouths touch, sweet and tasting, tongues a tender touch between hesitant lips. Softly, Pete nips at Patrick’s lower lip, snagging it snug between the press of his teeth. In an instant the kiss changes, deepens and darkens, dirty with moans and spit and hands that roam.

Pete catches the hem of Patrick’s pants under his thumbs, tugs and pauses, waits for the invitation of Patrick’s breathless whine, the nod that flickers between them as he pulls back and braces his spine to the doorframe. Pete whispers incomprehensible nothings, murmured nonsense that blurs and rolls together as he draws Patrick’s pants down over his hips, past his thighs – cream-pale and scattered with copper-gold hair – pooling at his ankles.

His lips, his tongue and teeth, all bite ravenous kisses into the milk smooth canvas of Patrick’s skin, painting a masterpiece of desire scored out in the same sharp brushstrokes that adorn Pete’s forearm. Patrick sings a moan above him, fingers sinking into the artful muss of Pete’s messy hair as his cock scrapes the stubbled stretch of Pete’s cheek. Pete’s common sense is draining lower with the flow of blood from his brain to his cock, each pulse drawing it tighter, higher, the brush of heated nerve-bright skin against the unbearable press of his sweatpants.

There are golden curls framing the rose-blush strain of Patrick’s cock, hair that traps the smell of fresh sweat, shower gel and leaking dick. Pete pushes his nose through them, licks desperation along the shaft of hair to Patrick’s navel, dips inside for just a moment as Patrick keens above him. His shirt is caught in the white-knuckle cast of an urgent fist, pinned up to his chest as he falls somewhere between the urge to watch and the need to look away. Pete licks the blood-rose crown of Patrick’s cock, slicks his tongue with salted desire then pauses, twinkling a grin at Patrick as he speaks.

“You should watch,” he urges as Patrick looks somewhere over his shoulder, eyebrows raised in disbelief. Pete grins, the tooth-bright frame of wicked temptation as he runs a hand over Patrick’s hip to grasp the heat of his – thick, beautiful – cock to a wondrous gasp. “Seriously, either you’re into this or your taste in porn is unfairly misleading…”

“Shut the fuck up,” Patrick groans, blinking blue-green-grey at Pete like misted moonlight on lakeshores. “And suck my fucking cock, asshole.”

Pete smiles. He blinks up at Patrick with a flutter of lashes the trail of a tongue slicked over the curve of his lower lip. Patrick is stiff in every sense of the word, every muscle, every pulse and flow of blood rich need flowing to flush him pink and lovely as he stares down at Pete wide-eyed and wonderful and quivers, nerve-raw with anticipation.

Eyes burnt bright to the ocean-wide gaze above him, Pete’s tastes the tip of Patrick’s cock, tastes the salted bitter flush of it again and again until it coats his tongue, paints his mouth with sex, sweat and come. Satin warm skin stretches his lips, fills him, consumes him as he slides down to meet the kiss of his own knuckles. Patrick vibrates, above, below and around him, he fists his hand tighter into the knotted mess of Pete’s hair, hikes his shirt higher – posy-pink pebbled nipples framed with honey-gold hair revealed – as he strives to lose his cries into bright bitten knuckles.

He sucks. He curls his tongue to frame the blood-flushed crown of Patrick’s cock. He follows the rhythm of the hips he sinks his fingers into, ragged white framing slivered crescents of ruby from the bite of bitten nails into alabaster skin. Patrick groans a love song of long-denied want into the press of bones stretched taut with pale skin, his eyes darkly desperate as he fucks his hips into Pete’s mouth. Pete draws him deep, demands more with each pull of his lips, snuffling groans into hard, heated flesh as Patrick draws up, onto his toes and taut with imminence.

Patrick is going to come.

Pete wants it, craves the hot, wet flood of it on his tongue, coating his mouth. He wants the lingering flavour of it to fuel him as he jerks himself frantically at Patrick’s feet because, so help him, that’s what he’ll do. He wants to taste come while he twists his fingers over the sensitive sting of the head, hand slick with leaking need. He wants Patrick limp and loose on the floor, legs spread and eyes glazed while he watches, watches each twist of Pete’s wrist, each twitch of his cock until he loses himself to sensation.

He sucks harder, works his mouth faster, tastes the leak of come and the tang of cock as Patrick’s head rolls back, lips loose and breathing ragged. He’s about to fall apart, teetering on the edge of an abyss that Pete will drag him down in the way he’s imagined so many times. Just a moment more, just a few more practised flicks of his tongue and…

Patrick shoves him back with a hoarse cry, bent double with a tight grip on the base of his cock.

“Fuck,” he hisses like a bitter curse as Pete blinks, shock-drunk, from the floor. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck.”_

Pete is confused.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, helplessly hesitant with a hard cock and wide eyes.

“Bed,” Patrick instructs. Pete darts a cautious look at the trashed mess of Patrick’s upended room, his bed littered with drawers and cardigans and vinyl. _“Your_ bed.”

“My bed,” Pete nods. “Right.”

They collapse to the bed in a tangle of limbs and questing mouths.

Hands seek heat, muscles taut with aching need as Pete grinds against the plush of Patrick’s skin. He nudges the weeping tip of his cock against the cleft of Patrick’s ass as his hips are framed by marble-pale thighs. Patrick twists beneath him, flips them and straddles him, hand finding the heat of Pete’s cock as he strokes a lazy symphony of starburst sensation between his legs. Mumbled syllables fall thick from his tongue, reaching Pete with the distance of an echo as he blinks, slow and stupefied, frowning his confusion into riptide eyes.

“Condom?” Patrick repeats slowly, like Pete isn’t very bright. Thinking about the events that led them to this moment, he’s inclined to agree. “Where do you keep them?”

“I… uh… I don’t?” Pete confesses with a helpless shrug. “Don’t you…?”

“Dude,” Patrick objects, huffing breathless laughter although Pete doesn’t think it’s funny. “I’ve been single for _two fucking years…”_

“Oh,” Pete mumbles, despondent blinking down at the comforter until his cock is framed by a warm fist. _“Oh…”_

Pete is adrift of swirling sensation, warmth pooling low in his gut as Patrick breathes a curse, lowers his hips and brings the flushed length of their dicks together. Kisses burn the length of his jaw, teeth nipping perfect points of passionate pressure to blaze sweet heat to his throat. Patrick’s tongue meanders, sweet and lazy, to his ear, lips catching Pete’s earlobe as he whispers like torturous temptation.

“Next time,” he murmurs with promises that makes Pete’s cock twitch – dark and leaking against the pale length of Patrick’s – that fists his hand into honey-blonde hair. “I swear to God I’ll fuck you. But right now… I guess, _right now_ … I just want you to watch.”

Pete scrabbles on clumsy elbows, craning his neck at just the right angle to stare down at the way they contrast together, the way Patrick curls his hand to encompass them both, the glorious friction of heated skin against skin. The rose-flushed head of Patrick’s cock glitters slick with need, his eyes fluttering closed and the sinful temptation of his lower lip bitten sharp between his teeth as his thumb circles the plush-plump crown of it.

There are minutes sacrificed to the slide of skin against skin, to the way Patrick’s cock curves to his with a palpable magnetism. It’s in the sink of his nails to the rounded swell of Patrick’s ass, in the way Patrick’s hips work in sinuous circles as he keeps up that maddening rhythm against nerve-sharp flesh.

And Patrick watches him, eyes burning against him as Pete flicks between the pull of the tide in that azure gaze and the obscene push of them caught in Patrick’s fist.

“You like watching,” Patrick observes, hand speeding, tightening and Pete is going to die. He’s going to shatter down to nothing more than the split of atoms in Patrick’s hand and scatter on the breeze through the open window. “There’s a mirror in my room… Think about next time, what you can watch us do…”

There’s a moment – a second of blinding white nothing – where Pete can feel nothing but Patrick’s hand on his cock, hear nothing but the rising roar of fizzing static that rings in his ears. It rises like a cresting wave, like every cliché he’s ever heard and everything he’s ever been able to imagine. The beat and pulse of it as it tears through him is enough to leave him breathless as he opens his eyes to Patrick’s smile in the breath of air before he falls over the precipice and into nothing.

“I love you,” he gasps, the last instance of sensible thought slipping like sand through his fingers as his release hits him square in the gut. He twists, tense and rigid, against the sheets, bucks his hips into the heated curve of Patrick’s fist, against the length of Patrick’s cock as he comes. He feels it all, each rippling clench of deep-hidden muscle that craves to be filled, through each fingertip and the screaming burn in his calves and thighs.

He feels it in the way Patrick tumbles down onto him, nose tucked to the sticky curve of his neck as he babbles beautiful poetry of half-formed thoughts and not-quite declarations made incomprehensible with breath stolen by heated kisses. He feels it in the cooling slick pooled on his belly and the way Patrick curls to his side, the anchor of his arm the only thing keeping Pete from floating adrift.

“I love you too,” Patrick groans, into the shell of his ear, tickle-soft lips making Pete twitch against the pillow. “And tomorrow, we’ll talk about boundaries and you’ll clean my room and I’ll… I’ll buy some goddamn condoms and – ”

“You’ll stop downloading illegally?” Pete prompts.

“I’ll stop,” Patrick promises, lilting a laugh that judders something sharp through Pete’s chest. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

~*~

The cotton of his cuff is crisply white against the gold of his skin, riding up slightly as he stretches to tap the silver tine of his fork against the cut crystal of the champagne flute in front of him. The gold band on his finger glitters, catching the light streaming in through the window behind them. A few tinkling rings ripple over the crowd, pulling hushed expectation in their wake as Pete clears his throat and, with a smile at his freshly minted husband – devilishly handsome in his tux – he takes the proffered microphone.

“So,” he begins, as their guests regard him with rapt anticipation. “Let me start by telling you how Patrick and I got together. It’s sort of a funny story…”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, Platinum my lovely, I hope you enjoyed that and I hope your birthday is as wonderful as you are!
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEETIE!


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